Nonverbal Communication In Interpreting

Human communication includes verbal communication and nonverbal communication.Nonverbal communication refers to everything used to communicate other than words, likeenvironmental language, kinesics, paralanguage and etc. It plays an important role inhuman interaction, especially in intercultural communication. Nonverbal communicationcan help to understand the communicative intention of both parties. Interpreting, in realsense, acts as a facilitator of communication for people from different cultural backgrounds.Nonverbal communication of the speaker can have great impact on the interpreter who isexpected to correctly understand and fully transfer the information intended by the speaker.The interpreter receives nonverbal message from two channels: visual channel andauditory channel. Due to the setting of interpreting and the uniqueness of workingenvironment, nonverbal cues received from the auditory channel generate more influenceon the interpreter’s performance.The thesis first introduces some basic information about interpreting, like its origin,development, definition and classification. Since interpreting is a kind of interculturalcommunication activity, of which nonverbal communication is an important part, theinterpreter will inevitably deal with nonverbal communication while doing his job. Basedon the analysis of categories, the thesis summarizes the following characteristics ofnonverbal communication: continuous, ambiguous, culture-bound and multi-channel. Itthen explains its relationship to verbal communication. Nonverbal cues can repeat,substitute, complement, emphasize, regulate and even contradict verbal messages. Thethesis explains the role of nonverbal communication in interpreting and specificallyintroduces how the interpreter can deal with nonverbal behaviors of the speaker. In the end,the thesis points out in what respects the interpreter can enhance the ability to deal withnonverbal communication to further improve work performance, like pre-interpretingpreparation, cross-cultural awareness and emotional quotient.